About

Hello there.

My name is Jim Smallman. I'm a comedian, writer, podcaster, voice artist, wrestling promoter and some other things. I'm busy, that's for sure.

COMEDY...

I've been a comedian since 2005 and work regularly for all the major clubs in the UK. Performing stand-up has taken me all around the world, from performing to affluent ex-pats in Singapore to headlining comedy tents at music festivals like Download and Sonisphere, to every corner of Europe and even to winning awards in the USA.

My work is split 50/50 between performing as one of the most in-demand MCs in the country, to performing sets between 20 minutes to an hour that showcase my blend of storytelling and improvisation.

I have taken several shows to the Edinburgh Fringe, including 2009's The Boy Next Door Gone Wrong (winner of Best Comedy Performance and Best International Show at the 2010 Hollywood Fringe in Los Angeles, and nominated for best debut show at the 2009 Leicester Comedy Festival); 2011's Tattooligan and 2012's Let's Be Friends, two shows that received a host of excellent reviews; and 2015's My Girls which was nominated for Best Show at the 2015 Leicester Comedy Festival, enjoyed a near sold-out run at the fringe and was filmed in front of 200 comedy fans in London during June 2016. You can buy that show by clicking here, if you like.

As well as perpetually working on various writing projects - both broadcast and literary - I have written articles and opinion pieces for various publications including The Guardian, The Daily Mirror, The Leicester Mercury, Metal Hammer, FSM and Skin Deep.

My main podcast of note is Tuesday Night Jaw, the most popular British wrestling podcast that takes a positive look at the world of grappling. It came about after I was asked to be a guest on Scroobius Pip's tremendous Distraction Pieces podcast early in 2016, and is proudly on Mr Pip's Distraction Pieces Network.

I also put out a more infrequent podcast called AniMates with my two chums Katie Mulgrew and Tony Jameson, where we watch terrible 1980s kids cartoons and talk about them. You can get that by clicking here.

Thanks to wrestling and football and comedy, I'm often asked to be guest on various podcasts, and that's pretty rad.

I was a local radio presenter (at BBC Leicester) for a couple of years, and am a frequent guest on stations like TalkSport and BBC Radio Five Live.

In late 2015 I recorded a piece for Radio 4 called The Unequal Past that is partly based on my fringe show My Girls.Click here to give it a listen, it's only 15 minutes long but I remain incredibly proud of it.

I'm also a semi regular guest on BBC Radio Five Live's Fighting Talk, which is pretty cool as it's always been one of my favourite shows.

TV...

Apart from my voice being on the show Car SOS and on the odd advert, my face has been on BBC1's The Big Questions, Ginx TV's Console Yourself and I used to host a couple of shows on the now defunct Sports Tonight station.

In 2016 I filmed a fair bit of stuff for Virgin Media based around the success of Leicester City, head to the video page to see a bit of that (which I also wrote).

WRESTLING...

That's what's going on in the picture at the top of the page. I'm one of the three co-owners of PROGRESS Wrestling, which we founded in London in 2012. As part of the creative team for the company I've been part of its rise from the first show in front of 300 fans to the cult product it is now, selling out 40 shows in a row, filling Brixton Academy, winning awards around the world and expanding to Manchester and Birmingham and even overseas.

My jobs with PROGRESS are varied - ring announcer, writer, executive producer and general face of the company. And even better, there's an awesome crossover between fans of PROGRESS and fans of comedy, which has really helped my career.